A year of befuddled foreign policy

From the failed EU constitution referenda to the budget squabbles; from the bra wars to the inconclusive World Trade Organization negotiations in Hong Kong - the EU as an entity seemed to be lurching around, seeking leadership and direction. Worse still, its member states seemed to be just as lacking in coherence and vision, regarding both the EU and their own individual interests.

National strategic interests are often overlooked when discussing the EU - or at best, they are confused with more minor, tactical issues. It is as if it is assumed that once states join the EU their major strategic interests, especially about security and economics, have been looked after for all time through membership, leaving only the occasional relatively minor issue, such as a billion or two on a rebate or a disagreement on the Common Agricultural Policy. But this cannot be the case: the EU needs the strategic vision of the states. Unless member states set strategic targets for themselves, how can they set strategic aims for the EU? And if they cannot set strategic aims for the internal workings of the Union, how can they decide strategy on wider issues of foreign and defence policy?

Looking beyond EU borders, the dire situation in Darfur offers an example of the strategic fudge of foreign and security interests. The Darfur region in Sudan has been ravaged by militant rampagers, the Janjaweed, apparently at the behest of the government, for more than two years. As a result the region is in a severe humanitarian crisis: nearly 2 million people have been displaced, killed, raped or maimed; their houses destroyed and their fields burnt. At the same time the long-running conflict in southern Sudan has finally come to an end and there is an attempt to assist the country in implementing an agreement.

There is no direct strategic interest for the EU in Sudan as such, but there is oil - and energy companies from a number of EU member states have heavily invested there. They have not actively blocked any EU action in Darfur, largely because so far there has been no need.

Worse still, vague attempts to mount an assistance operation of any kind have become mired in the continuing squabble with NATO over supremacy. For ultimately it was agreed that the African Union (AU) would undertake a mission in the region, with but a few thousand troops. The problem was getting them there. And so, the greatest EU political capital spent over Darfur was in bargaining with NATO over which organisation should offer planes to the AU - and get the international credit, of course. The two organisations divided the honours.

Darfur is deteriorating daily, and the EU is still deciding what to do about it. This is not surprising: it takes strategic vision to decide on a solution and implement it. But strategic vision and solutions are not currently the stuff of the EU.

Ilana Bet-El is an academic, author and policy adviser based in Brussels.